Driving Polarized Sunglasses, Do They Help

I love my Flexon glasses (both my regular pair and my polarized prescription pair - and no, I have no trouble seeing the speedometer). I'm the type who likes to drop, sit on, and otherwise crush his glasses so these were made for me. They take a licking and keep on, um, not breaking.

 

I also highly recommend polarized glasses to reduce glare.
When the sun is low and straight ahead and the road is wet, it makes the difference between just slightly impaired vision and half blinded.
I usually don't wear glasses, but I always have a pair of polarized drug store cheapos in the car just for those conditions.

If you want to make sure that they really are polarized, (sometimes they are mislabelled) then hold two pairs, one in front of the other, so that you are looking through both of them. When you then rotate one pair ninety degrees to the other, they should appear to become almost completely black where they overlap, if they are both polarized.
(Another really interesting physical phenomenon is that if you put a third polarized pair between them at a forty-five degree angle, they will become transparent again!)

 

If that were my job . . . sounds like it would have been fun.

No, I was Navy Aircrew. If handled properly, LOX is not dangerous, but, if mishandled, or the equipment fails, the consequences can be catastrophic.

All military and commercial jetliners carry LOX. That's how they can quickly provide enough breathing oxygen to all passengers should the cabin decompress at altitude.

Yep, when you are on any jet, you are flying with some little LOX bombs.

 

I have the rap around raybands polarized for jet skiing ..
cool website for the subject.. Myths and truths about polarized sunglasses and glare

 

Patrick

Hate to nitpick, but for civilian airliners, only the flight crew and cabin crew are provided with lox or pressurized o2. There is also pressurized o2 cylinders for passenger emergencies

The emergency o2 compartments in civilian airliners contain small cylinders packed with sodium chlorate, barium peroxide, and potassium perchlorate. The instructions call for you to yank the lanyard to start o2 flow

When you yank the lanyard, you actually fire a percussion cap in the cylinder. This starts the compounds inside burning, which as they decompose release o2. It's an exothermic reaction so the cylinder can get very hot when fired.

There are obvious advantages to using such a system for passenger o2 in emergencies. They can be stored for very long times, not needing the periodic inspections and checks that demand military o2 systems require

As far as a safety issue, properly looked after the solid o2 chemical generators are reasonably safe. The ValuJet DC-9 crash was due to expired o2 generators illegally shipped in the cargo area. One of them ignited, the exothermic reaction caused a chain reaction and the jet went down in flames

 

Another way to test a single pair of glasses is hold them up to the sky and rotate them as you look through the lenses. The sky should darken and lighten as the glasses spin.

I love polarized glasses since they cut glare and especially reflections on the windshield so well. But the problem is you can't see LCD displays. I wonder if it's possible to manufacture a bifocal-type lens that's polarized on top, plain on bottom. (I hereby trademark this idea.)

 

Don't hate!

Oh, yeah. Old technology >>> New technology.

I stand corrected - - -- not all airliners . . .

 

Of course they do. What else are you supposed to put on your bagel?

 

Personally, I prefer that creamy cheesey stuff. To each their own

 

Can you say EEBD?

The F/A-18 (newest flavors) contains an on-board oxygen generation system (OBOGS), which makes things a little simpler for the ground crews, though there is still a canister with LOX onboard.

 

Have a look at these.

 

Now I'm really worried. I have one of these at the hobby farm:

Miller - Performance Series Welding Helmets

Might as well wear it all the time

 

Ain't nobody messin' with Jayman, sporting a flaming helmet in his FJ. It'll keep the skeeters off yer head in the summer, too.

 

Actually, the skeeters tend to buzz in under the back to make welding an exciting adventure for me. It's a pretty cool auto-helmet. It has three settings: grinding, cutting torch, and welding

A lot of the old timers turn their noses up at such a helmet, but once you use it, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it. Sure beats flipping the hood up and down and up and down ...